The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and WomenSmith, Francis Hopkinson
General
The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women
Smith, Francis Hopkinson
Short stories, American
"I can tell you, Joppy," said Pudfut gravely, with a wink at Malone.
"There are two spas, both highly celebrated. Lord Ellenboro spent a
month there and came back looking like another man. One is for the
liver and the other for something or other, I can't recollect what."
"Heart?" asked Joplin.
"I don't know."
He didn't,--had never heard the place mentioned until Schonholz had
called its name a moment before.
Joplin played with his knife and made an attempt to nibble a slice of
Tine's toast, but he made no reply. All the fight of every kind seemed
to have been knocked out of him.
"Better take Fizzenbad in, Joppy," remarked Pudfut in an undertone.
"May do you a lot of good."
"How far is it, Schonholz?" asked Joplin, ignoring the Englishman's
suggestion.
"Oh, you leafe in de morgen and you come by Fizzenbad in a day more as
do one you go oud mid."
"No--can't afford it."
Here Joplin pushed back his chair, and with the remark that he thought
he would go downtown for some colors, left the room.
"It's working like a dose of salts," cried Pudfut when the Bostonian
was out of hearing. "Hasn't said 'epigastric nerve,' 'gram' or
'proteids' once. Got real human in an hour. Stebbins, you're a wonder."
The next morning everybody was up bright and early to see Schonholz
off. One of Fop Smit's packets was to leave for Rotterdam at seven and
Schonholz was a passenger. He could go by rail, but the boat was
cheaper. No deceptions had been practised and no illusions indulged in
as to the cause of his departure. He had had his supplies cut off, was
flat broke and as helpless as a plant without water. They had all, at
one time or another, passed through a similar crisis and knew exactly
what it meant. A purse, of course, could have been made up--Marny even
insisted on sharing his last hundred francs with him--and Mynheer would
have allowed the board-bill to run on indefinitely with or without an
addition to his collection, but the lad was not built along those lines.
"No--I go home and help mine fader once a leetle, den maybe I come
back, don't it?" was the way he put it.
The next morning, when the procession formed to escort him through the
Old Gate, every man answered to his name except Joplin--he had either
overslept himself or was taking an extra soak in his portable tub.
"Run, Tine, and call Mr. Joplin," cried Marny--"we'll go ahead. Tell
him to come to the dock."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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